Summary

Alfred Howitt, a colonial public servant, anthropologist and botanist, undertook broad anthropological research into Aboriginal culture and society. Influenced by the evolutionary hypotheses of the era and anthropological theory, he published widely on kinship and marriage. In 1861 he was asked to lead the first expedition to recover the remains of Bourke and Wills, which the party found at Coopers Creek. During his field research he collected botanical specimens and named and collected a type of Eucalyptus. He is commemorated in species of several genera; Ferdinand von Mueller named Acacia howittii (1893) for Alfred Howitt, who collected the type.

See also

Hall, Norman, Botanists of the Eucalypts: short biographies of people who have named eucalypts, whose names have been given to species or who have collected type material, CSIRO, Melbourne, 1978, 101 pp. Details

Nobbs, Chris, 'Talking into the Wind: Collectors on the Cooper River, 1890-1910', in Peterson, Nicolas, Allen, Lindy and Hamby, Louise (eds), The Makers and Making of Indigenous Australian Museum Collections, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 2009, pp. 206-34. Details